The landmark Gemini Giant fiberglass statue at the closed Launching Pad Drive-In restaurant in Wilmington, Illinois, was sold at auction Wednesday for $275,000, and the mayor announced it will remain in town at a different location.
Grafe Auctions didn’t reveal the buyer, citing its privacy policy.
However, the City of Wilmington hours later revealed in a news release the Joliet Area Historical Museum placed the winning bid on the fiberglass giant and turned it over to the city.
The purchase was made possible through a grant to the museum by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. According to a museum official interviewed by the Joliet Patch, that grant was expressly for that purpose.
The museum last year made an offer for the Gemini Giant and restaurant with the idea of converting it into a Route 66 visitors center, only to be rebuffed by owner Holly Barker.
“Since the Museum’s Route 66 Visitor’s Center opened its doors in 2002, it understands that a win for Route 66 preservation in Wilmington is a win for the entire region,” Mayor Ben Dietz stated in the city’s news release.
Dietz stated he recently met with the museum, plus other local individuals and organizations that sought to raise money to buy the statue, with the goal “that the Gemini Giant would not leave Wilmington.”
Dietz enlisted the experts from the American GIants Museum in Atlanta, Illinois, to carefully dismantle and store it in an off-site spot.
The American Giants Museum posted photos of it Wednesday taking down the Gemini Giant and placing it on a flatbed trailer.
Dietz said the Gemini Giant eventually will be re-erected alongside a planned Route 66 monument at the entrance to South Island Park, about a mile west of the Launching Pad.
“This will ensure the Gemini Giant will remain in a secure location that is fully accessible to residents and travelers alike,” Dietz wrote. “Most important, the placement on public parklands will ensure protection from future development.”
He said he hopes to have the Gemini Giant at its new location by the late spring. Dietz said he also wants historical status for the Gemini Giant. He mentioned that Route 66’s 100th anniversary in 2026 was a factor in the efforts to preserve the statue.
With auction fees added to the sale, the final price for the Gemini Giant was nearly $350,000. Early bidding stood at about $80,000, then rocketed upward on the final day.
Louie Keen, the so-called mayor of the Uranus Missouri complex, wrote on Facebook he was prepared to bid up to $150,000 on the statue so it could stay on Route 66.
Grafe Auctions placed hundreds of other items from the Launching Pad, including its metal “Launching Pad” roof letters, but not the restaurant itself.
Buying and securing the Gemini Giant took on extra urgency when Barker threatened to destroy it if it didn’t sell for $100,000.
Barker, whose tweets alternate between her reading Bible verses and posting conspiracy theories, also threatened to kill her former business partner, Tully Garrett, in a Twitter post in January.
She littered memorabilia and restaurant equipment all over the Launching Pad’s parking lot a few weeks ago, prompting a citation from local police.
During a tweet Wednesday, Barker said she would get back the statue and resell it.
Barker and Garrett purchased the closed restaurant in 2017 and reopened it about 18 months later. They shuttered it during the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened it sporadically.
The Launching Pad and Gemini Giant were inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame in 2000. Both had been one of the biggest photo opportunities for Route 66 travelers.
John and Bernice Korelc opened the restaurant initially as a Dairy Delite in 1960. They renamed it the Launching Pad after an expansion in 1965.
The Gemini Giant landed there in 1965 after John Korelc saw a Muffler Man during a restaurant convention. He retired in 1986.
Morey Szczecin bought the property in 2007 after longtime owners Jerry and Sharon Gatties retired. But the restaurant struggled financially and closed in 2010 until Barker and Garrett emerged.
(Image of the Gemini Giant at the Launching Pad Drive-In restaurant in Wilmington, Illinois, by formulanone via Flickr)
So glad the Giant is safe and will assume its rightful place along Route 66 in Wilmington in the near future. My attempt to buy one of the free-standing tables came up short.